Still trying to figure out the right SEO solution for your small business? Confused by all the nomenclature and techniques listed on the Internet? To the surprise of many, it’s not only about keyword use and a professional looking web design.
Take backlinks for example. Not many business-owners realize how backlinks are the bread and butter to ranking higher on SERP.
Backlinks have a lot of factors you need to consider, such as the linking domain age, and the number of linking pages. With the quality of links an important factor to determine site rank, many try to abuse it.
However, throughout the years Google has become smarter when it comes to distinguishing quality backlinks.
But what differentiates a high-quality backlink from a low-quality one? Let’s find out.
Low-Quality Backlinks
A low-quality backlink comes from unrelated and untrusted web pages. These types of links have little to no positive impacts on your SEO efforts. Actually, in some cases, you might even damage your Google reputation and make your website less visible on the search engine results page.
Typical Sources
Need to know to build backlinks that raise your site’s value? Start by placing backlinks only on trusted websites.
As a general rule, the lower the website’s quality is, the lower its backlink quality will be. When you post links to websites that have low-quality, poor design, or dubious reputation, it will have a negative impact on your SEO rankings. In a similar fashion, posting links on websites that manipulate rank as its primary purpose will earn you penalties.
Aside from quality, you need to consider its appropriateness and relevance to your website. When you post links that aren’t related to your specific industry, Google will rank it as low quality. After all, your website doesn’t have relevance to it, which marks it as an attempt to manipulate rank.
Intention
If you want to know how to get backlinks, you need to consider the intention of your link. It’s a contributing factor when it comes to quality, and Google has methods of giving you advice on the reason behind your methods of building links. You need to watch out for your intention–especially when you want to improve your website’s domain authority and rank.
If Google thinks that the link you placed has no organic purpose, it’s going to get treated as low quality. The reason behind it is that the search engine thinks that its purpose is to generate traffic in an artificial manner–something the search engine frowns upon.
Structure
This factor relates to the intention you have for the link. For instance, if you post the link on its own in a blog comment, it’s usually marked as spam. It’s more important to give your link some context that doesn’t mention spam indicators like “click here” and the like.
Type of Links
When you use the same link when posting external sources, Google will consider it as a bad link. It’s important to be relevant when it comes to the topics and platforms you post the link in. Always remember to avoid sticking to one or two links since that can get marked as spam.
Frequency
The number of times and the frequency of you posting backlinks can impact their quality. When posting your backlinks on the same source a lot of times on a daily basis, the links become spam. You need to apply this same rule when using different sources–if the number of your backlinks skyrocket without logical explanation, your link quality suffers because of spamming.
High-Quality Backlinks
This type of backlink can give rewards to your website rankings the more you have them. You get more domain authority and a higher visibility in search engine results page. It’s an important factor since people unconsciously trust search engines when it comes to getting the information they need.
Typical Sources
The general rule for high-quality links is that the higher your source’s quality is, the higher the backlink’s quality will be. These sources include sites with high reputation, with the .gov and .edu distinction having the highest credibility. Major publishers and information sources have a lot of authority, which make them great candidates for high-quality links.
When it comes to relevance, make sure to get the ones that can connect the most with your industry. Some great examples of these include blogs that post information specifically for your industry and forums that discuss related topics. The more specific and specialized it is in your niche, the better and more authoritative it becomes.
Intention
When you want to engage in backlinks SEO, make sure that your intention avoids rank manipulation as much as possible. Instead, focus on building links for a valuable purpose for people who will see it. Links that aim to elaborate points, cite facts, and establish credibility can give more depth to your content.
Structure
Links of this type of quality will always build a reputable structure, avoiding standalone links. In typical situations, explanatory texts frame it. For instance, it can have a quick explanation for its reason on a forum comment.
Another surefire way of getting a high-quality link is to include it in the body of a high-quality guest blog post.
Type of Links
The more diverse the links you use are, the higher the quality your links become. Again, using the same link many times will net you a negative impact on your backlink reputation. In other words, high-quality links will always point to specific internal pages as their sources, which serve as a means of getting a point across and other specific functions.
Frequency
When it comes to the frequency, high-quality links should only get used at a reasonable rate. They should get posted in a sporadic manner over the course of time. It’s never posted in fits and spurts and isn’t spammed into a single source at once.
High Quality vs. Bad Backlinks: Why Do You Need to Know the Difference?
When looking at your backlink profile using free tools to analyze your website, you’ll see the referring domains and backlinks associated with it. If you’re thinking about the meaning of this information, you need to remember that what you need to look at is the ratio of referring domains to backlinks.
When you possess a lot of backlinks but not a lot of referring domains, it means you have a very weak backlink profile. For example, if you have 120 backlinks but only have 20 referring domains, Google will most likely consider your website to be engaging in shady backlink practices.
The reason why the algorithm punishes this type of ratio is that it often indicates a paid linking scheme. The most common scheme is private blog networks. Thankfully, Google is cracking down on these networks and de-indexing them.
That’s why it’s important to audit your backlink profile. After all, if your website has connections with de-indexed websites, your ranking will suffer. It’s best to maintain your distance from paid blog networks to ensure your backlink profile stays strong.
How to Avoid Bad Backlinks
Quality is the most important thing Google looks for in your backlink profile. That’s why it’s important to ensure that you get rid of the bad backlinks and avoid shady practices.
The most notorious scheme around is link farming, which aims to mislead search engines with the use of multiple fake pages as their links, making it look popular.
Of course, during the early days of search engine algorithms, this technique worked wonders in boosting page rank.
However, as times changed, the algorithm developed in such a way that it can now scrutinize links in terms of quality. Google’s PageRank algorithm is making the link farms outdated by ensuring that its use results in heavy penalties.
Always remember that in terms of backlink profile strength, “quality over quantity” is your top priority.
As Google analyzes the sites linking to yours, the website’s quality plays a big part in affecting your rankings on the search results page. Making fifty backlinks that come from an unrelated industry won’t help your SEO efforts because it has no bearing on your keyword search phrase.
Build High-Quality Backlinks Today!
When you know the difference between quality backlinks and bad links, you become more conscious of the things you want to link to your website.
There are a lot of ways for you to build backlinks while ensuring that you don’t end up manipulating search engines in a malicious way. You can use a lot of backlink builder tools available on the internet, which can show you websites that you can use depending on the keywords you want to rank for.
Always remember that you can’t build a good backlink profile overnight. It’s an ongoing process that needs you to be patient to ensure its success. It’s worth the effort because good backlinks will do a lot of positive effects for your search rankings.
Do you need help building a good backlink profile? Contact us today and we can help you get started.